A Camera-Trap Study in Eastern Sikkim Photographed a Gaur at 3,542 Metres and a Tiger at 3,966 Metres Across 64 Stations and 20,411 Trap Nights

A camera-trap survey in eastern Sikkim photographed a gaur, the largest wild cattle species, at 3,542 metres above sea level in Pangolakha Wildlife Sanctuary. The researchers, from the Wildlife Institute of India, call it the highest verified photographic record of the species anywhere. The same cameras photographed a tiger at 3,966 metres in the Kyongnosla region, which the paper lists among the highest elevations recorded for tigers in the Himalaya.

The study is “New elevational limits of Himalayan mammals in eastern Sikkim, India”, by Pooja Pant and six co-authors, with S Sathyakumar as corresponding author. It appeared in the Journal of Threatened Taxa on 26 October 2026 (volume 18, issue 10), and Hub Network and Down To Earth reported it on 2 and 4 November. Funding came under the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem.

How the cameras were set

Across the area the team set 64 camera-trap stations along existing tracks and trails, laid out on a 4 by 4 kilometre grid. Cameras ran from February 2023 to May 2026 and added up to 20,411 trap nights (one camera working for one night is one trap night). Elevations ran from 1,800 to 4,200 metres.

Gangtok and Pakyong districts of Sikkim make up the study area, with Tibet to the north, Bhutan to the east and Neora Valley National Park in West Bengal to the south. Three sanctuaries lie inside it, which the paper sizes at 31 square kilometres for Kyongnosla Alpine, 124 for Pangolakha and 52 for Fambonglho, plus forest outside them.

Thirty mammal species turned up. Eleven of the records are ones the authors single out: five new elevation records and six first confirmed photographs for eastern Sikkim.

The gaur at 3,542 metres

Earlier work, the paper says, treats the gaur as generally a mid-elevation forest species. It gives the previously reported upper limit as about 2,800 metres, citing Choudhury (2002), Zangmo and colleagues (2018) and Sharma and colleagues (2022). The Pangolakha photograph is roughly 740 metres higher. Its authors write that under suitable conditions the gaur may use habitat well above its currently recognised range.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the gaur as Vulnerable, in an assessment dated 25 May 2016 that puts the number of mature individuals at 6,000 to 21,000 and the trend as decreasing.

One detail needs a plain statement. In January 2024 the Sikkim Forest Department announced a gaur at 3,568 metres in Pangolakha and called it a world record. The new paper gives 3,542 metres, and it does not mention the earlier figure. Neither the paper nor the 2024 coverage I read explains the difference of 26 metres, so this article uses the paper’s number.

The tiger at 3,966 metres

The 3,966 metre tiger was announced by the Forest Department in the same January 2024 statement, with the Wildlife Institute of India as its partner in the camera work. That statement described the animal as a male photographed at Kyongnosla. The paper puts the record into a journal. It adds a second high tiger record, 3,682 metres in Pangolakha, and says repeated camera captures, pugmarks and scat confirm that tigers are regularly present at these heights.

On rank, the paper is careful. It calls 3,966 metres “one of the highest” records for the Himalaya, not the highest. It cites a Sikkim tiger record of up to 4,140 metres from a 2025 statewide snow leopard assessment by WWF-India and the Sikkim Forest Department, and a Bhutan record of 4,400 metres from earlier studies. The Forest Department’s own 2024 statement had placed the 3,966 metre photograph second in the world after Bhutan. The Bombay Natural History Society reported a tiger at 3,640 metres in Pangolakha in December 2023, and records from North Sikkim in 2019 reached 3,602 metres.

The IUCN lists the tiger as Endangered, on an assessment dated 15 December 2021.

The others, and a red panda at 4,100 metres

Three more animals set elevation records for the study area. A wild pig was photographed at 4,000 metres, and a golden jackal and a red panda at 4,100 metres each. The IUCN lists the red panda as Endangered, in a 2015 assessment.

Six more records are first confirmed photographs for eastern Sikkim: sambar at 3,050 metres, clouded leopard at 3,189 metres, common palm civet and spotted linsang both at 2,939 metres, mithun at 2,936 metres and crab-eating mongoose at 2,368 metres. The paper defines a “new elevational record” as one above the highest previously documented for that species in the study region, so for the tiger, wild pig, jackal and red panda the claim is about eastern Sikkim, not the world.

Why forest reaches so high here

The authors point to the shape of the eastern Himalaya. Its lower latitude and heavier monsoon rain let trees grow higher than in the central and western Himalaya, and in eastern Sikkim forest persists to about 4,000 metres. A 2019 review of 145 Himalayan sites in Biodiversity and Conservation found treeline elevation running from 3,200 to 4,900 metres and rising from north-west to south-east along the range.

That gives a forest species somewhere to be. The authors add that the records may reflect both long-standing high forest and more recent environmental change.

What the study does not settle

The authors list three explanations that can all be true at once. Camera traps and survey designs have improved, and much of the elevation range in eastern Sikkim had never been systematically surveyed. Some species may be shifting upward as the climate warms and vegetation changes. Or the animals have been there a long time and went unrecorded.

The paper says “current evidence is insufficient to distinguish between these alternative explanations” and asks for long-term monitoring. Hub Network’s report says the study does not establish that climate change is responsible for the sightings. Winter sampling was limited, so the team cannot say whether the animals stay at height all year or move between elevations with the seasons.

What it means for the forests

The paper’s conservation point is about connection. The sanctuaries and the unprotected forest between them form a stretch of habitat joining Sikkim to Bhutan, Tibet and the Neora Valley. The authors recommend extending systematic monitoring to high-altitude habitat both inside and outside protected areas, and they name the unprotected forest linking Sikkim with Bhutan and Tibet as deserving more conservation effort. They warn that shifts in where species live could bring more competition, change predator and prey relations and increase conflict between wildlife and people.

For readers who want the wider Sikkim setting, the Khangchendzonga National Park article covers the state’s mixed World Heritage site. India’s snow leopard assessment shows how camera traps were used across six Himalayan states and union territories, Sikkim among them. For how camera-trap photographs become animal counts, see how India counts its tigers and lions.

As of 5 November 2026 the full paper is open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence at the Journal of Threatened Taxa.